How to build muscle like Jason Momoa

Now he's been officially revealed as Aquaman in the upcoming Justice League movie, Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa is adding a new comic-book character to his belt - resurrected rock star The Crow. To celebrate, we dug into the MH archives to bring you this exclusive interview from his New York home.

Four days after his 35th birthday, Jason Momoa will not divulge any details of his night out. Not because his publicist is silently drawing a finger across her throat, and not because he’s only here to talk about ‘the work’. It’s because he can’t really remember it. “I was with a bunch of friends,” says the Game of Thrones and Conan actor. “We went climbing in the daytime – did some good old exercise. Then we went on a pub crawl around Detroit, had a nice dinner, a good cigar... and I don’t recall too much after that. Someone put me safely in my bed.”

This was not two Appletinis swirling around a salad-filled six-pack. Momoa likes a drink and likes to tell you he likes a drink, especially if it’s a Guinness. And talking to him, you get the impression that you would like to have a drink with him. (MH bought out a liquor store’s entire supply of canned Guinness halfway through the photoshoot.) You might not be so chummy, however, when he flips your mattress over at the crack of dawn to drag you up a mountain. “I get up at 5am and I train hard. I’ve got two young children, so I have to get up early. But I like it. Morningis when I do all my best work. Whenever I wake up, I’m up, I don’t lie there like an idiot. I get up, run up a hill, get some exercise and have some time with my thoughts.”

Momoa’s road hasn’t been smooth. It started with a role in Baywatch Hawaii as a 19-year-old with some modelling experience, before he landed a larger part in a bigger show as Ronan in the last four seasons of Stargate: Atlantis. It was the perfect set-up to score a blockbuster movie and become Hollywood’s next big thing but it didn’t quite happen. Not yet.

Restarting The Engine

Men’s Health met him in Detroit, where he is absolutely not making Batman Vs Superman, alongside Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill. The 2016 superhero team-up movie is filming in the Motor City and Momoa is rumoured all over the internet to be playing Aquaman. “Can’t tell you a thing, man,” he says, with more a tone of I-literally-have-no-information rather than my-contract-says-I-can’t.

The king of Atlantis, of course, has a swimmer’s physique and Momoa’s vitals – 6ft 4in, 108kg, a 50-inch chest and 19-inch biceps – are not necessarily those of a man who can swim with and talk to the fishes. And, he says, “swimming can be boring. To me, it’s like going on a treadmill.” He prefers to get his exercise from outdoor pursuits and sports, rather than a repetitive regime in the gym. Indeed, he says he’d never lifted weights before 2010, when he trained to play the title role in the film that was meant to make him, the reboot of Conan the Barbarian. “It’s very hard sometimes to just work out. It’s monotonous and you can get stuck in a rut. I get bored, so I do a lot more boxing, surfing, climbing – I do the things I love to do when I’m not training for a role. When I have to change my body type, then we just switch it up. Doing a lot more weights for size; a lot more cardio for definition.”

Conan didn’t kill it at the box office. Unbowed, Momoa sent in an audition tape for an upcoming HBO series, based on a saga of niche fantasy novels. His terrifying rendition of the All Blacks’ Haka landed him the part of Khal Drogo in the first season of Game of Thrones. Memorable for his total embodiment of a warrior, and also for his relationship – you can put air quotes around that word and raise both eyebrows – with Emilia Clarke’s character Daenerys Targaryen. “Emilia is like my sister,” he says, perhaps forgetting the fact that siblings in the series are, well, closer than they should be legally. “She’d come over and my son would have a figurine of her and a dragon. He loves dragons. He’s also obsessed with swords. Which is perfect if dad works on Game of Thrones.”

Momoa talks about his family a lot. His daughter is seven years old, his son five-and-a-half and his wife of seven years, and the mother of his children, is the actress Lisa Bonet. She is nearly 12 years older than him. With asuccessful marriage to a successful older woman, the husband must have a special insight into the female psyche, yes? “Ha ha! No. Men are idiots and women are crazy. Generally speaking, I’m always wrong, so I just apologise. They’re queens, man. Take care of your queen, and she’ll take care of her king. Just do everything you can for her. I met her over a pint of Guinness. She ordered it. I thought: ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m with a woman who ordered a Guinness. I love her.’ When I got to know her, she was the woman of my dreams.” It’s at this point in the conversation that the tone of Momoa’s voice becomes much more serious. “I think I’d be in a whole worse place if I didn’t have a beautiful wife and children. I’m very thankful for my family. They keep me in the sky but they also keep me grounded.”

Foot On The Gas

Now he’s hit his mid-thirties, Momoa says that it’s the age that has made him feel like he’s officially a man. “My family and my career are both going where I want them to go. The older you get the more you have to take care of yourself, but I also want to drink a couple of pints with my friends in the pub. I want to do both of those things, and even when I’m 50 or 60, I’m going to do them.” Poised to (probably) star in (probably) the hugest comic-book event in cinematic history, Momoa’s road is finally smoothing out. Managing the bumps along the way has been a matter of balance. His life operates on a grander scale than most, but the guiding principles apply to all. Know when to be serious, and when not to be. Understand that the rewards of hard work come only after the work has been done. Fit as much as you can into the day. Momoa has taken those corny, self-help points and made them real. His positive spin on everything helps, but he’s fully aware that things aren’t always peachy.

In November 2008, he was glassed in a Hollywood bar, and required 140 stitches. For the celebrity press, it was a time to speculate on an actor’s future. For the man himself, it was time to be at home with his children: “It made me realise I don’t have to do what I don’t want to do.” It was only then that he outlined Road to Paloma, a road movie that was four years in the making. He wrote, directed and starred in the film that is now hitting the big screen. It is the same refusal to be cowed that keeps him strong in the gym that has made him a bigger man than ever. His serious voice kicks in again. “I don’t want to be always sitting there waiting for someone to call. You got to go out and do it for yourself.” We can raise a Guinness to that.

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